IGP, John Judalor
The Inspector General of Police (IGP) John Kudalor has been in the news one too many for negative reasons in recent times.
He took on the added schedule of Immigration matters with political undertones when he said that Ghanaians in Togo should not be stopped from coming to vote during the December 7 polls.
Like other responsible Ghanaians, he should be concerned when his compatriots in nearby countries are denied their civic rights of casting their ballots for candidates of their choices.
What is intriguing though is that our IGP prefers to ignore very important issues such as the impunity of ruling party activists, some of who have confessed to killing many persons – a pastime they are nowhere near stopping.
No Ghanaian, regardless of which part of the world they are sojourning, would or can be prevented from casting their votes during general elections. We would rather the IGP leaves this aspect of our security enterprise to personnel of the Ghana Immigration Service, who are best primed to manage such subjects.
We, just like other Ghanaians concerned with the success of the forthcoming general election, are uncomfortable with the IGP’s newfound love with immigration matters much to the detriment of satisfactory policing of the country, especially during these difficult times.
We wish to remind him about how a Superior Police Officer used a police vehicle to move election registration machines to Togolese territory with a view to capturing details of nationals of that country during the last limited registration exercise.
Hundreds of such persons have voted in our elections over the years and it is this class of persons which every responsible national should prevent from interfering in our electoral process. Failure to do so would constitute a civic irresponsibility, a breach which security fallouts can only be imagined.
We do not know why the IGP considered it worthwhile to, as it were, render his concern at this time about Ghanaian voters in the Diaspora when a correspondence sent to him about security concerns by the NPP is yet to be replied to.
The reason he has come out this way is because the Volta Region branch of the NPP seeking to ensure that the electoral anomalies of previous polls when Togolese were aided to come and vote in local elections are not repeated.
The party has adopted measures to address it.
We cannot fathom why he appears jittery about the denial of foreigners from voting in Ghana. Nobody can prevent Ghanaians living in Togo or elsewhere from exercising their franchise if they are registered to do so under the electoral laws of the country.
We therefore find it unnecessary that the IGP would be intervening in an issue which has no basis, unless there is something unknown to us but known to him and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) associates.
We support the nationalistic spirit of stopping foreigners from voting in our national elections and would laud whoever takes measures to support the upholding of our laws in that direction.
The IGP, by his unnecessary concern, has joined the ranks of serial callers and foot-soldiers whose trademark features of wading into issues of propaganda value are a household knowledge.
Our IGP’s cadre traits have been activated so he dreams of shutting down social media which he is yet to come to terms with, and now seeing nothing wrong with Togolese trooping to Ghana to vote, provided they would vote for the NDC.